The Windsor Star from Windsor, Ontario, Canada • 11

TiieW'indsorStxr Thursday, May 9, 2002 All Just for Mom Guess says she craves anonymity Regulation with lawyers rejected by paralegals II I .1 II TTT I Ml I H. l. i. ft Jf vl 'y4 i By Ellen van Wageningen star justice reporter An organization representing Ontario's paralegals has rejected a proposal to regulate them as "unworkable" and the plan is expected to draw fire today at a meeting of lawyers in Toronto. The County and District Law Presidents' Association which represents 8,000 lawyers in private practice outside the Toronto area was to discuss the "hot button issue" this morning, said executive member Richard Gates, of Windsor.

Gates is one of the group of lawyers and paralegals that came up with the recently released proposal now being reviewed by groups on both sides. It says the body that governs Ontario's lawyers the Law Society of Upper Canada should also regulate paralegals. The proposal is meant to provide a framework not the final solution for regulating paralegals, he said. "So it's a long way from being accomplished, but I think we've reached, potentially, an important milestone here." The board of the Paralegal Society of Ontario opposes the proposal mainly because it gives lawyers a controlling role in regulating people who provide legal services at a cheaper rate, said president Bob Hotrum. If paralegals are regulated by a separate organization, "then the whole premise of the existence of the paralegal community as it exists today would be be lost," said Hotrum, who works for the Ottawa office of Par-O-Law Canada Inc.

"People come to me because I'm a paralegal. If I become a member of the law society why would they come to me? It would be the same as going to a lawyer." But the paralegal society, which has 180 members, is prepared to continue talking with lawyer's groups because "they at least seem to have accepted that we're here to stay," Hotrum said. A growing number of paralegals in Ontario help clients with simple legal matters, including landlord-tenant disputes, traffic tickets and small claims court. Some have ventured into more complicated areas, such as divorce and immigration. Their role in the legal system has been a bone of contention since the mid-1980s.

Ron Ianni, the late president of the University of Windsor, prepared the first government-commissioned report on the issue. He said in 1990 that paralegals should be regulated and allowed to expand their legal services. A more recent report by former Supreme Court justice Peter Cory says paralegals should be independently regulated. But the law society already has a structure in place that, at least initially, would be cheaper than trying to set up something separate for 1,000 paralegals, said Paul Dray, one of the paralegals in the group that came up with the latest proposal. There are about a dozen paralegals in Windsor and Essex County working independently of lawyers.

By Steve Mertl the canadian press vancouver Ex-juror Gillian Guess's temper flared Wednesday when a defence lawyer suggested she dressed provocatively to attract the attention of the accused murderer whose case she was hearing. Phillip George suggested Guess wore a see-through blouse and deliberately propped her feet on the rail of the jury box while wearing a miniskirt. "Absolutely not," she said. "I find that entirely offensive and insulting." At another point, George asked Guess about her previous claims she and Peter Gill communicated during the murder trial through body language and other forms of non-verbal communication. That happens with everyone in the world, Guess responded.

"Like you and I obviously don't like each other, so we're communicating that," she said. Guess wrapped up almost three days of testimony in Gill's obstruction of justice trial by resisting George's claim that no affair took place during the 1995 trial of Gill and five other men accused in a two gangland-style murders. Guess was convicted in 1998 of obstruction of justice. The jury in this B.C. Supreme Court trial has been instructed not to figure her conviction in their deliberations.

Whether Guess, who became notorious internationally, can escape the limelight is another question. "It would be wonderful to think that one day I can actually assume anonymity," she said. "That's what I crave right now." George seemed to have difficulty reconciling Guess's willingness to detail her affair with Gill in media interviews while claiming to be afraid of him. Guess detailed incidents where on one of their few public dates after the trial he claimed to have punched a man in the washroom of a bar. Before Gill's trial began.

Guess wrote the Crown asking for protection for herself and her children. "There's so much I haven't said," she told George. "I have fully rational reasons by past behaviour and things he's told me." Guess said she believed he was innocent of murder and still does. Students at St. Maria Goretti School received the Outstanding Elementary School Award from the Recycling Council of Ontario, Wednesday.

Members of their Green Team work daily on waste minimization and students produce green projects like grass heads created the Brianna Ataman and her junior kindergarten class a Mothers' Day gift made from sawdust, nylon and grass seed. star photo: Nick Brancaccio Confession is Lawyer By Terri Theodore lawyer Ron Caryer said Wednesday "It's what I call copaganda." body was found three weeks later in a lake in a provincial park almost 45 minutes from were she had last been seen. Caryer said Ertmoed told police that "he started to take off her pants and panties and then he killed her." "The theory of the Crown is that Shane Ertmoed lured Heather Thomas into his townhouse. He began to sexually assault her and when she panicked, he killed her," Caryer told the jury. THE CANADIAN PRESS VANCOUVER The neighbour accused of killing 10-year-old Heather Thomas confessed to police that he was responsible, the Crown prosecutor said Wednesday in his opening arguments.

Shane Ertmoed later told an undercover police officer who was placed in his cell: "Whatever you hear about me, know that I won't do it again," Crown However, the lawyer for the 23-year-old said it's exactly those two pieces of evidence that are among the weakest parts of the Crown's case. Sheldon Goldberg said police wore down Ertmoed, leaving him little choice but to confess. "The options left to Mr. Ertmoed were either to spend the rest of his life in jail with the likes of Clifford Olson, Paul Bernardo and Terry Driver, or if you want to have some chance, confess. He urged jurors to pay close attention to the testimony of the police officer who took the confession and the undercover officer who was in the cell with Ertmoed.

Ertmoed was charged in November 2000 with abducting and killing the girl, who had been riding her bike around the townhouse complex where her father and Ertmoed lived. Heather disappeared from the Vancouver-area suburb Oct. 1, 2000. Her Baby-faced bomber nabbed after father tipped off cops Row OakFWl Moil to, Wed! 9 FpI. 9 9 Saf.

9 6 Sun. 12 -5 a. SOLID OAK FURNITURE I i (MM.US 2 (401) wumynu'K Student confesses to making 24 pipe bombs The Associated Press RENO, NEV. The FBI zeroed in on 21-year-old Luke Helder as the suspect in the string of pipe-bomb attacks after his father called police about a disturbing letter in which his son warned, "Mailboxes are exploding," authorities said Wednesday Helder was captured Tuesday in Nevada after holding a shotgun to his head during a car chase and telling a friend by telephone "I might have to blow myself away," authorities said. The FBI had used the signal from his new cell phone and a tip from a motorist who spotted his Honda Accord to pinpoint his location some 2,255 km from his home in Pine Island, Minn.

During his odyssey halfway across the country, Helder was stopped by police and released three times for traffic violations over the weekend. But that was before his father called police and an all-points-bulletin for Helder was issued on Tuesday On Wednesday, the FBI said Helder confessed to making a total of 24 pipe bombs out of tape, paper clips and Christmas tree bulbs and placing 18 of them in mailboxes in five states, along with anti-government notes. Helder had the six other bombs with him when he was arrested, authorities said. Six bombs in all exploded, injuring six people in Iowa and Illinois. The FBI said the final 10 bombs found in Nebraska, Colorado and Texas were not rigged to detonate.

Helder faces federal charges in at least three Midwestern states. At a brief hearing in Reno on Wednesday, he was ordered held without bail for transfer to Iowa. He could be sent to prison for life if convicted. His public defender, Vito de la Cruz, did not immediately return calls. The bombs rattled the Midwest and recalled last fall's anthrax-by-mail attacks as well as the case of the Unabomber, who was turned in by his own brother.

The bombings prompted the Postal Service to suspend service in some areas and urge people to leave their mailboxes open so letter carriers could peer inside. The FBI issued an alert for Helder after his father, Cameron, called police late Monday night about letters from his son that included references to death, anti-government comments and the phrase "Mailboxes are exploding." The same phrase was in the notes found with the bombs. Helder also wrote his father: "If I don't make it through this ordeal (if the government doesn't realize I can help) then I'll have to get out of here for awhile." Before Helder's arrest, criminal profiling ex- Luke J. Helder of Pine Island, is taken into custody in Reno, Wednesday after he was arrested following a manhunt that stretched across half the country. Associated Press photo: Paul Sakuma perts had speculated that an older man was responsible.

But the improbable suspect who emerged proved to be a guitar player in a punk rock band called Apathy and a junior studying art and industrial design at the University of Wisconsin-Stout in Menomonie, Wis. Helder remained something of an enigma Wednesday. He was described as bright, polite and not given to ranting about politics. In high school, he played football and golf and was in the choir. Until this week, his criminal record showed only a marijuana possession charge last October.

Citing his writings and statements from friends, however, the FBI said Helder had become obsessed recently with death and the afterlife. His roommate, James Divine, was quoted as telling authorities that Helder had mentioned some "anti-government rhetoric here and there" but that he felt It was harmless. OaWLU SOLID OAK FURNITURE.